Altman’s spherical Orb made TIME cover as answer to AI problems

The unusual spherical device Orb from Sam Altman appeared on the cover of TIME magazine. It is designed to represent a technological answer to the growing problem of digital identification in an era when artificial intelligence blurs the boundaries between human and machine. This futuristic scanner in just a few seconds conducts biometric verification of the iris, assigning the user a unique World ID and crediting Worldcoin cryptocurrency.

Behind the external simplicity of the procedure hides a quite ambitious project to create a global system for confirming human identity in digital space. Orb devices already function in the USA, South Korea and a number of other countries, forming infrastructure for large-scale verification. Altman’s team’s current plan provides for checking 50 million people by the end of the year, however actual indicators significantly lag behind declared goals. At the moment only 12 million users have passed through the system. But even this figure is already impressive.

The cryptocurrency reward of 42 dollars works as a classic user attraction tool, similar to early PayPal marketing strategies. And the value of the World ID ecosystem should increase proportionally to the number of verified participants, creating a network effect typical for platform solutions.

With successful implementation of the project, World ID potentially wants to transform into a universal digital identifier. A kind of unified verification system for social networks, online services and even government services. Replacing traditional methods of confirming the human nature of the user.